Nvidia Thinks Big With Plans for Futuristic Campus

Chip maker Nvidia announced plans for a new corporate headquarters with a futuristic look.

Nvidia has a pretty high profile among videogame fans and those who follow the chip world. Soon, though, many people may remember the Silicon Valley company for its distinctive headquarters.

The company Wednesday announced a plan for a new corporate home across the street from its current offices in Santa Clara, Calif. The campus will have two futuristic glass buildings with a distinctive shape based on the triangle–the underlying geometric building block used in computer graphics, Nvidia’s longtime specialty.

Jen-Hsun Huang, the company’s CEO, says the buildings will mark Nvidia’s 20th anniversary this month, and are a response to the fact the company’s existing facilities are “bursting at the seams” with employees. But there’s considerable symbolism involved in the project, he adds.

“It will stand at the intersection of science and art, just as our work in visual computing does,” Huang writes in a blog post. “It will be the symbol, the physical manifestation, of our vision for the company.”

Nvidia is not disclosing how much it will spend on the buildings, each of which has 500,000 square feet of space. The design comes from Hao Ko, a young Harvard-trained architect at Gensler “who shares our values and drive to perfection,” Nvidia says.

The first building is expected to be occupied in July 2015; the second will be built when growth requires it, a company spokesman said.